Redemption Applied

2020 ◽  
pp. 496-513
Author(s):  
J. Todd Billings
Keyword(s):  
Union With Christ ◽  
Lively Discussion ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
To Come ◽  
Acts Of God ◽  
Gradual Transformation

Union with Christ is a crucial theme for Reformed soteriology with far-reaching implications in numerous areas, including the theology of the covenant, the sacraments, eschatology, and the outworking of the doctrine of grace as justification and sanctification in Christ. Through engagement with scriptural exegesis and the refining of various catholic and characteristically Reformed elements, a Reformed doctrine of union with Christ has much to offer to the broader theological and ecclesial discussion. Rather than reducing salvation to simply a forensic act or a gradual transformation, the Reformed tradition holds together God’s forensic declaration with the Spirit’s indwelling, transformative work. Rather than approaching the various acts of God in salvation as temporal stages for human ascent to God, God’s electing action unfolding in justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification are ‘manifestations’ of union with Christ. Rather than reducing salvation to a purely vertical or purely horizontal affair, the Reformed hold together communion with God in Christ with covenantal, reconciled communion with others who are adopted into his household. This cluster of topics continues to generate considerable debate and development in contemporary biblical and theological circles, and promises to be an area for lively discussion for years to come.

Christ-Centered Peregrinatio: The Mediated Journey

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Dual Roles ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Union With God ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

This chapter discusses how Christ bridges the human–divine, temporal–eternal, earthly–heavenly realms by healing and purifying the believer for union with God. This union with God consists of knowing and loving God—imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come. This union happens through the conformation of the believer to Christ in love, which forms the believer for rightly ordered relationships with God, self, and neighbor. Augustine pictures the process of conformation as the journey to the homeland, a pilgrimage the believer makes to God in Christ. Christ is the way to the homeland and he is the way because he is the homeland. Christ’s mediating and healing work is inextricably tied to his dual roles as the way and the end.

scholarly journals ATONEMENT THEORY REVISITED: CALVIN, BEZA, AND AMYRAUT ON THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT

Perichoresis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-75
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Harding
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Insight Into

ABSTRACT Throughout the bulk of the Reformed Tradition’s history within both Europe and the United States, most scholars have dismissed pastor and theologian Moïse Amyraut as a seventeenth century French heretic whose actions and theology led to the demise of the Huguenots in France. However, upon further introspection into Amyraut’s claims as being closer to Calvin (soteriologically) than his Genevan successors, one finds uncanny parallels in the scriptural commentaries and biblical insight into the expiation of Christ between Calvin and Amyraut. By comparing key scriptural passages concerning the atonement, this article demonstrates that Reformed theologian Moïse Amyraut in fact propagated a universal atonement theory which parallels Calvin’s, both men ascribing to biblical faithfulness, a (humanistic) theological method, and similar hermeneutic. As such, both Calvin and Amyraut scripturally contend that God desires and provided the means for the salvation of the whole world. Further, the article demonstrates that Calvin’s successor, Theodore de Beza, could not in fact make the same claims as Amyraut, this article demonstrating that Beza went beyond Calvin’s scriptural approach to Christ’s expiation. Therefore, this article supports a more centrist approach from within and outside the Reformed tradition by demonstrating that Calvin and Amyraut concentrically held to God’s gracious provision in Christ for the saving of the whole world, for those who would believe in Christ for salvation.

scholarly journals Martin Luther and Justification

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Media ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Well Function ◽  
The One

The doctrine of justification is an account of how God removes the guilt of the sinner and receives him or her back to communion with God. The essential question concerns how the tension between human sin and divine righteousness is resolved. Luther’s central claim is that faith alone justifies (that is, makes a person righteous in the eyes of God) the one who believes in Christ as a result of hearing the gospel. This faith affects the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that covers the sins of the believer. In contrast to medieval doctrines of justification, Luther argues that Christ himself, not love, is the form, or the essence, of faith. Love and good works are the necessary consequences of justification even if they are not necessary for justification. However, the inclination to love and perform good works is present in the believer through Christ, who is present in faith, but these characteristics do not as such, as renewed human qualities, have justifying power. Luther’s doctrine of justification cannot be classified with simplistic categories like “forensic” and “effective” (see the section “Review of the literature” below). Often these terms are used to refer to differing interpretations of justification. However, several recent traditions of scholarship perceive this categorical differentiation as simplistic and misleading. Instead, these terms may well function to designate different aspects of God’s salvific action. In the narrow sense, justification may refer to the forensic and judicial action of declaring the sinner free from his or her guilt. A broader sense would include themes and issues from other theological doctrines offering a holistic and effective account of the event of justification, in which the sinner believes in Christ, is united with Christ’s righteousness, and receives the Holy Spirit. Depending on the context, Luther may use both narrow and broad definitions of justification. Here Luther’s doctrine of justification is approached from a broader perspective. On the one hand, justification means imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness to the believer without merits. On the other hand, faith involves effective change in the believer that enables one to believe in the first place. This change is not meritorious because it is effected by Christ indwelling in the believer through faith. Thus, Christ gives two things to the sinner: gratia, that is, the forgiveness of sins, and donum, that is, Christ himself. The media through which Christ offers his mercy are the word and sacraments. Thus, Luther’s sacramental theology, Christology, and soteriology form a coherent whole. Because justification involves union with Christ, which means participation in Christ’s divine nature, Luther’s doctrine of justification has common elements with the idea of deification.

Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Reformed Tradition in the Modern Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 441-456
Author(s):  
Randall C. Zachman
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Modern Era

Friedrich Schleiermacher reformulated the doctrines he inherited from the Reformed and Lutheran dogmatic traditions, in order to demonstrate that the certainty of faith in God, as well as faith in the redeeming power of Christ, could be maintained in an age of scientific and historical criticism of the Christian faith. He located faith in God in the immediate consciousness of being absolutely dependent, which he claimed emerged in the development of every human consciousness. And he located faith in Christ in the way the influence of the sinless perfection of Christ, mediated through the testimony of the Christian community and supported by the picture of Christ, strengthened the consciousness of God so that the inhibition of the God-consciousness by sin could be overcome. His hope was that such a reformulation of doctrine would not only clarify the meaning of faith in the modern world, but would also reunify the Christian traditions that had been divided since the Reformation.

John Calvin

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
John Calvin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
In Christ

This chapter describes John Calvin’s theology of salvation. Calvin champions the work of the Spirit’s indwelling, transforming, and glorifying human beings in Christ, as well as his understanding of the gospel as the double grace of justification and sanctification accessed through union with Christ, received through faith.

Antoine de la Roche Chandieu and the extra Calvinisticum into Early Reformed Orthodoxy

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-273
Author(s):  
K.J. Drake
Keyword(s):  
Church Fathers ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Ongoing Development ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
The Church

This chapter investigates the extra Calvinisticum in the Reformed tradition after the shift to scholastic theology in the 1580s by investigating the work of French theologian Antoine de la Roche Chandieu. Chandieu is widely considered one of the fathers of Reformed scholasticism and produced the most extensive work on the extra in this period. In De Veritate Humanae Naturae Christi (1585) he offers an exposition and defense of the extra in response to the christology of Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz. Chandieu’s work is distinguished from other treatments of the extra in both scope and depth, utilizing scholastic methodology, scriptural exegesis, and the church fathers. The work of Chandieu demonstrates the ongoing development of the extra in the period of early Reformed orthodoxy, which is in continuity with the precedent tradition and uses the new scholastic method not to unmoor it from the biblical witness but to secure it more firmly.

The Legal Significance of Christ’s Risen Life: Union with Christ and Justification in Galatians 2.17-20

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-472
Author(s):  
J. Andrew Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Direct Relation ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

This article addresses the relationship between Paul’s reference to justification ‘in Christ’ in Gal. 2.17 and the description of Paul’s relation to Christ in Gal. 2.19-20. Interpreters typically suggest that these verses bear no direct relation to each other or that they demonstrate that Paul understands justification to entail more than a forensic declaration. There is, however, an old but often neglected interpretation of this passage maintaining that Gal. 2.19-20 should be understood in forensic terms. This view suggests that the phrase ‘Christ lives ἐν ἐμοί’ (Gal. 2.20) does not refer to the indwelling of Christ but rather depicts Christ’s reception of resurrection life as a representative event into which believers are incorporated. The central argument of this article is that several lines of evidence support the viability of this proposal.

scholarly journals Preaching and Definitive Sanctification

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
MICHAEL CHRIST
Keyword(s):  
Union With Christ ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Way

This article proceeds from the assumption that the way a preacher conceptualizes a Christian’s identity in Christ shapes how he brings moral exhortation to the congregation. The concept of definitive sancti- fication—first coined by John Murray and developed by Richard Gaffin and others—identifies the believer as, in some sense, holy in Christ. This is not the holiness of imputed righteousness but a renovative change. Moreover, having been made holy, believers must act according to the logic of their identity in Christ. Three implications for preaching emerge from definitive sanctification: (1) preaching Christ and moral commands must be kept together, (2) the biblical indicative and imperative must inform each other, and (3) preaching must be eschatologically oriented. KEYWORDS: Sanctification, John Murray, preaching, eschatology, definitive sanctification, union with Christ

Richard Berry: Gondomar's English Catholic Adviser

1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert J. Loomie
Keyword(s):  
James I ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
To Come

The embassy of don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña during the later half of the reign of James I has remained the topic of considerable debate as to its influence over the politics and attitudes of the first Stuart monarch. It is time, perhaps, to move the discussion to an opposite quarter by asking whether there were any English efforts to sway the ambassador, and if so, what impact did they have on the embassy's performance. One interesting example of this is the evidence that English Catholics approached Sarmiento upon his arrival in the summer of 1613 with a new suggestion for a closer liaison. The court of King James had been already alerted to this prospect by a letter of Sir John Digby from Madrid of the preceeding year. Here he noted that there had been dissatisfaction among the Catholics of his acquaintance over the unproductive performance of don Alonso de Velasco previously on their behalf. He offered as a forecast about his successor: ‘And hereupon it hath been held fitt, that the succeeding ambassadour who is to come shortly into England, should rather take the course of Intelligence and dependency of our English papists on the king of Spaine transferred unto him by don Pedro [de Zufiiga] then by don Alonso de Velasco …’ Digby expected that a large sum of money was to be available to the next envoy to ‘revive and reestablish the meanes of Intelligence’ that were available as before.

Interpreting Values Cross-Culturally “With Special Reference to Insulting People!”

1979 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-364
Author(s):  
Karl J. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Acts Of God

This essay approaches communication from an unexpected quarter — insults. In the final analysis communicating the Gospel involves communicating the mighty acts of God in Christ within the context of values. Since insults are directly related to cultural values, they become important to those concerned with effective communication of the Gospel. Dr. Franklin explains how by identifying the various components of values they can be judged vis-à-vis supernatural values, aiding the communicator in knowing which values need “conversion”.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document